Austrian
Artists Take Space is the second part of an exchange project
between
the Austrian Kunstverein W.A.S. and 18 artists from Los Angeles. Last
fall,
the US artists had a show in Graz/Austria at the Minoriten gallery. The
American artists chose to call their show: 118W/2N - Los Angeles`s
longitude
and latitude.The
Kunstverein W.A.S. refers also to the US: Veronika Dreier, Sabina
Hörtner,
Doris Jauk-Hinz, Gertrude Moser-Wagner, Inge Pock, Andrea |/ Martin
Breindl,
Rosa von Suess, Erika Thümmel, Eva Ursprung. It foregrounds the
European
settlers acquisition of land more than 200 years ago and how they
headed
for the West to expand their frontiers. The project also issues the
current
expansion of the new frontier: space.

What
is characteristic of the Austrian artists and their projects shown at
the
Otis Gallery, Los Angeles, is their willful use of space.Sabine
Hörtner who uses adhesive foil to modify perspective and
perception
of space, as well as Andrea Sodomka and Martin Breindl, who move worlds
of their own - visually and acoustically - by means of
computer-generated
projections of machine parts, intervene into space through gestures
which
try to capture it. Eva Ursprung, on the other hand, gives a minimalist
outlook into another dimension; a dimension of the self-referentiality
of the medium in the excessive. The aspects of history and everyday
culture
are treated by Veronika Dreier in her floor project "carpet". Erika
Thümmel`s
reference to women of the so-called Third World Countries under the
aspects
of means of use and usability meets with Rosa von Suess`s reflections
dealt
with in her installation "Wellknown Watching". Using eight monitors,
she
opposes commuter-generated views of the human body`s inside - according
to standards of medical monitoring - with the dream of a perfect
existence.
Inge Pock`s textile installation deals with a spiritual approach to
energy
while Gertrude Moser-Wagner, in a way, embodies energy. She defines
gravitation
and its surmounting as sculptural factors and self-referentially
presents
"black holes". Equally ironical is Doris Jauk-Hinz`s reference to the
power
of the female in her project "hot apple": the ancient symbol of the
apple
- highly energetic - comments on the cold medium of today`s technology
of communication.

Despite
the variability of the participating artist`s approaches, their
projects
share the following. They all go beyond the boarders of their
particular
genre in their conquest for new means of expression. Traditional
conceptions
of the sculpture as well as those of textile or media art are
questioned
and experimentally enlarged.